Dreams of Guilt
by Riparian-Fluellen
Summary: In which we revisit Ianto and get a glimpse into Jack's unconscious mind.


The white void was; the white void and nothing else.

Then there was a moment of hazy awakening within it, and into this environment Jack was submerged. There were no thoughts as to why he was here, he just was. He was free floating in the void, and yet it felt as there was something substantial beneath him; as if he were lying on top of something. There was a vague gnawing feeling forming from somewhere inside of him, and then becoming so big as to spill out into the world around him.

The feeling was consuming him now. Then, just like that, Ianto was on top of him. He was straddling him in a very intimate way indeed. He was wearing the suit and tie he had died in. The tie looked disheveled, the knot was loose and hung low on his chest.

"You never said it back, Jack." Ianto had his head down and Jack couldn't see his eyes, but there was a whine to his voice. Not the usual whine that he got in his voice when he was upset, but something more sepulchral and monotonous. "You said... 'don't'. Do you... know what that's like?" He was kneading at Jack's shirt and some of the flesh beneath it now rather harshly and sporadically. Jack tried to get up into a sitting position, but only managed an awkward halfway leaning position.

"To love someone so much, that the _one_ thing you want to do before dying is to tell them that you love them?" His monotonous voice droned on with a hint of bitterness, and still the underlying sepulchral whine.

"Ianto, I – " Ianto snapped his head up in one quick, frenetic motion and stared into Jack's eyes. His face looked haggard and worn, with deep, dark circles under his eyes.

"To tell that person – to _actually tell_ that person – and then to have them say 'don't? To die slowly in the arms of someone who doesn't reciprocate your feelings? To see that all the shit you've thought about yourself throughout your life – how utterly useless and unwanted you are – to see all of that confirmed in the eyes of the one person you so badly wanted love from? To die knowing it meant nothing to that person? Do you know?"

"I'm so sorry." Jack felt hypnotized by his words, and he was trying to push down the ever-cloying regret. He tried to push it down and give an apology he didn't outwardly feel, though he felt it so very much inwardly.

"Sorry for what?" Ianto leaned his face to Jack's ear and lowered his voice to a whisper. Jack could smell his hair, how it used to smell, but there was something else – dirt, was it? His field of vision encompassed the head of Ianto and the white void, staring back at him. He felt as if the void wanted to draw attention to Ianto, in contrast to itself. As if to underscore what Ianto was saying.

"Sorry for not telling me you loved me back or..." Ianto slid his hands down Jack's torso slowly and seductively and then into his pants. Jack gasped aloud as Ianto rested his hands on his crotch for a moment or two. "Or, are you sorry for leading me to my death like a lamb to the slaughter? To what was essentially a suicide mission, hm?" Ianto then moved his hands to Jack's hip, slipped them out of his pants and removed the gun from his hip holster.

"What are you – " Jack couldn't quite convey the anxiety he was feeling. He felt as if he were stuck to this spot and there was a barrier in-between the emotions he felt and his ability to express them. Ianto cocked the gun and put it to his temple. The gun still pressed to his temple, he leaned forward and kissed Jack deeply and then broke away. "So which is it, Jack? Sorry for not reciprocating my feelings? Or sorry for manipulating my loyalty into suicidal willingness?"

Ianto pulled the trigger and his blood and brains splattered out onto Jack. And just like that, the emotional barrier broke and Jack started screaming. Ianto's body slumped forward and the bloody, ruined mass of what used to be his head fell to Jack's shoulder. His screaming persisted and intensified until it felt like it was shattering and undoing the entire place. He screamed until he couldn't hear himself scream anymore.

He awoke with a start and he imagined he could still taste his dead lover's blood in his mouth.


End file.
